Painting exercises are quite a ‘limited’ enviroment. So, to begin with, lets try to limit this self-assessment to aim of these exercises.
The following questions help you pinpoint how you used intense & muted colours. Looking at your own painting & trying to see exactly how these colours function will help you assess if they are working well in terms of sucessful picture making.
Exercise 3: Paint your own intense painting using the intense split-primaries.
- You were asked to use only intense colours. Did you?
- Bet that was difficult! Why????
- OILS & ALKYDS : Did you use white? Did it make the mixes more intense or not?
- Where didn’t you use intense colours?
- Which colour is the least intense?
- Every painting will have a colour that is the most intense. Where you did place the most intense colour?
- Is the most intense colour difficult to see?
- Are there many intense colours?
- Is the eye attracted towards the most intense colour?
- Did you have to switch many colours? Was that difficult?
- Are the switched colours in tune with the other colours?
- Did you have any difficulties mixing a good dark or a good black?
Exercise 6 : Paint your own muted painting using the muted split-primaries.
- You were asked to use only muted colours. Did you?
- Bet that was difficult! Why????
- Did you cheat & use black?
- OILS & ALKYDS : Did you use white? Did it make the mixes more muted or not?
- Where didn’t you use muted colours?
- Which colour is the most muted?
- Which colour is the least muted?
- Every painting will have a colour that is the most muted. Where did you place the most muted colour?
- Is the most muted colour difficult to see?
- Are there many muted colours?
- Is the eye attracted towards the most muted colour?
- Did you have to switch many colours? Was that difficult?
- Are the switched colours in tune with the other colours?
- Did you have any difficulties mixing a good dark or a good black?
Please note that these are open ended questions that don’t really have a right or wrong answer. They depend on you & they depend on your painting. Generalized rules can obstruct rather than help!
I believe the first step of assessement is clear, bare observation. Try to see what you are looking at before you judge it. Sometimes we can’t see our own painting…
The infinite way in which
RUSKIN
everything alters everything else.
